Nutrition Update

I am always looking for better ways to train and race in order to improve my race performances. I genuinely believe I can win my age-group in a race, most likely in a half-ironman distance event I suspect, at some point in the future but I am a little way off that based on past events.

I eat wonderful, nutritious, real foods and have felt so much better since I started doing this and avoiding processed foods about two years ago. Also, I stopped using mainstream sports nutrition products such as energy gels and bars and now fuel my longer workouts and races with real foods like fruit, nuts and/or fats like coconut oil, as well as drawing energy from my stored body fat.

Some slight changes

Over the past 12 months or so I have done many of my workouts in a fasted state to some degree and/or consumed very few calories during longer workouts. Through this I have found the ability to produce constant and consistent energy from burning stored body fat. What I intend to trial over the next few months, as I approach race season, is how I respond to training in a fasted state less often and consuming more calories during longer sessions. Also, preparing slightly different for certain key high intensity workouts with the food I eat, including extra carbohydrates before and during the sessions.

My hypothesis is that, provided I continue to consume a majority low carbohydrate, moderate protein, higher healthy fat, real food diet, practice moderate intermittent fasting and do occasional workouts in a fasted state, I will have no problem maintaining my ability to burn body fat efficiently for energy. Then, by determining what and when to eat carbohydrates during longer and/or more intense sessions, those workouts will be more progressive towards their purpose and I will have greater success at increasing speed on race day. This is particularly important for the upcoming season as I will include several short course events and I need to develop my top end speed significantly.

As I have discovered, fueling with fat from food and stored body fat is highly effective in long distance, endurance events. When you are fat-adapted you are far less likely, if ever, to ‘hit the wall’ – whereby your muscles are depleted of glycogen and can’t access any other energy source – because your body has so much energy in reserve in body fat to draw from and supply your muscles.

Fueling high intensity training and short distance races can be a different kettle of fish. I believe that for producing very high intensity efforts and production of maximum force/power/speed during a short period of time, carbohydrates are necessary. Carbohydrates provide the quickest source of energy to the working muscles, as they are absorbed into the bloodstream faster for use as blood glucose. However, it will only be the appropriate use of carbohydrates that will provide benefits. Excessive use could potentially inhibit performance as my body may resort back to a greater reliance on sugar/carbohydrate ingestion for continued, longer term energy output.

I have no doubt that a low carbohydrate, moderate protein, higher healthy fat lifestyle consisting of real, natural foods is very important for everyone whether you exercise a lot, in small amounts or not at all. Combine this with some intermittent fasting and I see it being the most effective lifestyle for obtaining and maintaining optimal health and weight control. Also, there has been a massive amount of people over time, including many triathletes, who have suffered because of an overconsumption of refined and/or processed carbohydrates. This has resulted in those people suffering a range of ailments including poor control of weight and appetite, big fluctuations in energy due to the blood glucose/insulin rollercoaster and poor recovery due to increased inflammation. Therefore, I understand the importance of not abusing carbohydrate consumption and using them appropriately to maximise training and racing gains.

Expectations

The quality and timing of those carbohydrates is highly important with the main sources being fruit and sweet potato. I may use fruit during workouts and races in their whole form or as purees that I prepare myself and coconut water too. Previously, I have eaten some sort of fruit everyday and sweet potato a couple of times per week; my new regime will be an increase on that.

Occasionally, I will do high intensity sessions in a fasted state because I might be doing it very early in the morning and/or to maintain my fat burning ability at those intensities. I know I often feel very good when I train first thing in the morning and have great energy throughout, therefore, I don’t particularly need anything to have a great workout, provided I am properly hydrated.

My intake during a race, I anticipate, won’t accumulate to be a very high quantity of calories compared to what I used to consume and what many athletes currently do. For example, when I competed at the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Mont-Tremblant, Canada, I consumed approximately 1200 calories during that event. Then, only five months later, after becoming fat-adapted, I raced Challenge Melbourne over the same distance. In that race, I consumed less than 600 calories while producing a personal best bike split for 90km, feeling great for the entire run and coming home like a freight train in the last 5km. This improvement was all down to the fact that my body had become so much more efficient at producing energy because I was consuming a lot of fresh, real foods and less processed and refined foods on a daily basis. I had also changed to a low carb, moderate protein, higher fat intake which allowed my body to become very efficient at producing energy from stored body fat as well.

It is very important to understand that, although I will be going back to the consumption of carbohydrates to fuel races and more of my training, it is not reverting back to a common, daily, high carbohydrate intake. Also, there will be as much emphasis as always on the consumption of high quality, nutrient dense food but in larger quantities, mainly due to an increase in the amount of vegetables and fruit that I will eat.

The benefit of hindsight

Over the past couple of months, I have realised that I may have been functioning in a calorie deficit much of the time during last season, and this may have been the main factor in my sub-par half-ironman performances. On a very regular basis I was performing training sessions first thing in the morning in a fasted state. Also, I did many longer workouts, up to 3 hours, only consuming water and no calories. I would always refuel very well afterwards and I would be well fuelled prior if I was training later in the day but I was very focused on developing my fat burning capabilities in preparation for the Ironman, in May, and I possibly took it too far. I know that it worked for the Ironman as I was so used to doing a steady state effort for a long time relying on body fat for energy but, in hindsight, I may not have used my intermittent fasting as best as I could in an overall approach to my entire lifestyle.

For many months, I almost never consumed any food within the first three hours of the day. I would always have about 500mls of water and usually a coffee when I got up but I didn’t have breakfast until after training or after being up for several hours. Usually, I didn’t feel hungry until then. If I was working an early shift I might not have eaten for the entire shift and then have my first meal when I got home at lunchtime. My reasoning behind this was it would help me to be as fat-adapted as possible. I would eat large meals of nutrient dense foods and, usually, only do so in an approximate 8 hour window each day. Therefore, I knew I wouldn’t be overeating so I would be in control of how much I consumed and I assumed it was more than adequate for my energy needs. As it turns out, I may not have been consuming quite enough to properly combine with my training and, therefore, I was putting my body under unnecessary stress, to a degree, which likely contributed to the episodes of fatigue and illness which seemed to happen a little too often.

I must point out to you that what I was doing is not necessarily the wrong approach. In fact, I think the above mentioned approach would be a terrific strategy for more sedentary people to use several days per week while ensuring the food eaten is of a high quality. However, for someone who is trying to train 10 – 14 hours a week while spending time with a young family, aiming to get eight hours sleep a night and working a full-time shift work job, it appears this wasn’t appropriate for me. For that reason, I am changing my eating structure to be more suitable for supporting my training load as part of an overall strategy towards balancing life as well as possible. I thought I was doing this previously but my race results suggest otherwise.

A few changes

I began changing things approximately six weeks ago and I have been feeling really good for it. Here is what I have already started to implement:-

Ø  Large, green smoothies some days which usually contains approximately 700mls of fluid (combination of water and coconut water), two bananas, two large handfuls of spinach, half an avocado, another fruit such as one apple, some berries or two kiwi fruits, half a tablespoon of coconut oil, one or two eggs and a teaspoon of maca powder. Sometimes, when I make it the night before to take on an early shift, I will add a tablespoon of chia seeds and flaxseed meal which gives them time to soak up some moisture and make it a bit thicker and filling. This is such an easy way to get in fluid and nutrients quickly with little preparation time so it’s a terrific breakfast or post workout option.

Ø  Eating more often – I am eating up to five times per day and about half of the time I have breakfast within about two hours of getting up in the morning. Again, this is dependent on what training I have done or am going to do that day. I still always start the day with a big drink of water and a coffee before I decide what I will do for breakfast and how soon I will have it. This means I am consuming slightly more food and calories per day than I was before and I have found that I am drinking more water overall with this greater food intake.

Ø  The type of food is as important as ever – lots of vegetables and salad, the majority of which are non-starchy. Fruit, eggs, meat, chicken, fish, nuts and seeds and small amounts of dairy. Also, I have other fats from olive oil and coconut products like coconut oil, coconut cream and coconut milk. However, the quantities of each of those groups has shifted towards more vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds as an overall approach towards eating more plant foods.

Ø  My dairy intake has decreased – I use butter when cooking eggs in the pan but cream and cheese have become almost non-existent over the past month. Milk is limited to a dash in my coffee or tea. This has been a conscious decision as I am beginning to lean towards dairy not being necessary and if I was to eliminate dairy altogether I honestly don’t think I would be missing out on anything because I am replacing it with more vegetables. I have heard the point made several times that ‘cow’s milk is made for baby cows, not humans’ which seems fair enough to me. It may be the simplest explanation for why plenty of humans don’t digest it well. I don’t believe I have a problem with digesting dairy but if I decide not to have it all, it won’t be any loss nutritionally. Also, although I am not vegan or vegetarian, I have recently felt much more sympathetic towards dairy cows because, in order for them to supply us with milk, they have their calves taken away from them almost immediately after giving birth. I think becoming a father has contributed to these feelings arising and I must say that it seems a very sad scenario.

Ø  My fat intake is still up there through consumption of quality meats and fish, nuts and seeds, coconut oil/milk/cream, olive oil, eggs and avocados. Eggs will remain a regular item and I am consuming wild caught fish more often and other meats less often. Fish has not been very prominent in my diet recently but through the convenience of wild caught sardines in a can I am changing that. Whenever possible I will consume other species of wild caught fish too.

Ø  Less fasting – Instead of fasting until late morning or lunchtime most days, as I was before, I now only do it once or twice a week and it is dependent on what training I am doing that day or have done the day before. I haven’t done a 24-hour fast for a while but they will be thrown in the mix from time-to-time. Essentially, I will be looking to achieve a much better balance of fasting days to regular days to use it more effectively. Training on an empty stomach first thing in the morning will still be semi-regular which will cover the vast majority of my intermittent fasting regime. 24-hour fasts will only happen during low training, recovery periods and will be used to enhance those recovery periods as well as fat-adaptation.

Ø  No more bacon – I have decided to avoid bacon from now on. Previously, I had stuck to buying a locally produced product that a small, local grocery/café store supplied. It was the best quality I could find with almost no nasties in it and it was better than anything in the supermarket. I ate a lot of bacon in the early months of being low carb/high fat and didn’t give much thought to the quality of the bacon I was eating. Now, I understand how bad 99% of available bacon products are and the other 1% which is organic and/or free of nasty ingredients is very expensive so I just don’t care for it anymore. Instead, I will eat more plants. Essentially, bacon falls into the processed meat category, particularly when it is not in that 1% of quality products, so it is no better than cured or other deli meats and I definitely avoid those.

The changes I have mentioned above have enhanced my focus on consuming quality, nutrient dense, natural foods. This goes beyond looking purely at the macronutrient breakdown of fat, protein and carbohydrates. I now have the added focus of obtaining greater amounts of micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, etc.) through the higher consumption of fruits and vegetables.

In order to be in the best possible health to support my lifestyle and continue pushing for greater race results I must keep pursuing the best possible nutritional intake. Although knowing what is the best nutrition is an ever evolving thing for both me and the world, I’m sure we can all agree that the best possible nutritional intake will always involve the high consumption of quality vegetables. Likewise, the best possible food intake does not include processed foods, ever!

To be the healthiest version of yourself you must consume natural, nutrient dense foods all of the time. Every processed food you eat is potentially robbing you of life, causing you to be sick more than you should both short and long term. It creates unnecessary inflammation/pain in your body, increases your risk of contracting one or more of a huge number of diseases or illnesses and reduces your overall life expectancy.

Do what is best for your body and mind by only eating the best quality food and you will enjoy a lifetime of possibilities and if in doubt, just eat vegetables.

Cheers,

Lincoln.